Joe Haines, Harold Wilson’s former press secretary, has died aged 97, the Labour Party said.
“Lifelong Labour supporter” Haines died at his home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on Wednesday.
Haines worked for newspapers in Parliament from 1964 before becoming deputy press secretary and then chief press secretary to Mr Wilson in 1969.
He also served in a similar position while Wilson was leader of the opposition, and returned as press secretary in the mid-1970s when Wilson was back in Number 10.
He later held roles including group political editor, assistant editor and a non-executive director for the Daily Mirror.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds and Tony Blair adviser Alastair Campbell were among those paying tribute.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Haines, who served as press secretary to Harold Wilson, died today at his home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
“Joe, who was 97, had two spells as press secretary to the former Labour prime minister in the late ’60s and mid-70s, becoming one of his most trusted advisers.”
Haines was described as “fiercely proud of his working-class background” and also worked as a journalist and commentator before and after his time in politics.
Thomas-Symonds described Haines as “one of the great characters of 20th-century Labour governments”, while Campbell said he had been a “huge support” both in his journalism career and during his years as a spin doctor at Number 10.
Campbell added of Haines: “He was a superb tabloid writer and had a great mind, with acute political judgment. He could be grouchy but he had a great heart too.”
Roy Greenslade, who edited the Daily Mirror in 1990-91, said: “Joe Haines and I didn’t have a good relationship when I edited the Daily Mirror. But I admired his amazing journalistic skills.
“Among his most memorable phrases was his jibe at The Sun: a paper that had fallen from the gutter to the sewer. Unbeatable!”
Despite this Haines himself had worked at The Sun before joining Wilson.
The Labour statement added: “The son of a Rotherhithe docker who died when Joe was two, he was raised by his mother, a hospital cleaner. He left school at 11 and started his newspaper career as a copyboy at the Glasgow Bulletin at the age of 14.
“But it was as a political correspondent that he came into his own. He was covering politics for The Sun pre-Rupert Murdoch when Wilson asked him to be his press secretary.
“A fast and brilliant writer with an acerbic tongue, he won a reputation for toughness and loyalty in equal measure.
“After Wilson left office, Joe wrote a controversial best-seller about his time in politics, The Politics Of Power.
“He later joined the Daily Mirror, rising to become group political editor, assistant editor and a non-executive director under Robert Maxwell and wrote his authorised biography.
Haines offered advice privately to the Labour Party and leaders during his retirement, the spokesman said.
“He was pre-deceased by his wife Rene, and they had no children.
“Though Joe had been struggling with physical illness for some time, requiring three trips to hospital for dialysis every week, and had also lost his sight, he remained mentally alert to the end.
“He spent Christmas and New Year on a cruise of the Iberian peninsula and recently held a 97th birthday party – he was born January 29 1928 – and insisted on dying at home, where he was looked after by carers.”
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